Haiku Deck Rock Star Series: Crafting the Perfect Pitch

More than two years ago, soon after we launched, this ingeniously simple and informative Haiku Deck caught my attention. “Startup Pitch Template” was created by Jeremy Caplan, Director of Education for the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism and an accomplished journalist himself.

How To Promote Your Business: Startup Pitch Template by Jeremy Caplan

Startup Pitch Template, by Jeremy Caplan

Startup Pitch Template has proven to be one of the most enduringly popular Haiku Decks of all time, continuing to draw significant organic traffic, thousands of views, and dozens of social shares each month, more than 2 years after its creation.

When you consider that in the context of Haiku Deck’s origin — a radical pivot, inspired by the pain of putting together a pitch deck for a completely different business idea  — it’s pretty clear that people are looking for a better way to pitch their business ideas.

Our co-founder and CEO Adam shared this backstory, and his best tips for a killer pitch, in this entertaining Haiku Deck:


Secrets Of A Killer Pitch #sicpitch #sic2013 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

If your agenda is to promote or pitch, Haiku Deck is your secret weapon — especially with recent release of new features like logo slides and custom color backgrounds.

“If your agenda is to promote or pitch, Haiku Deck is your secret weapon.”

When I relaunched my consulting business recently, I didn’t have time to create a website or even business cards, but I definitely had time to make a Haiku Deck! It was a fun, flexible way to experiment with messaging and imagery. (Compare that to the expense of creating videos, which can be expensive and nearly impossible to update.)


Vitamin C Creative Overview – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Rock Star Tips for Promoting Your Business

How to Promote Your Business: Sample logo slide

Sample logo slide

  • Use a paragraph slide to share a mini-manifesto highlighting what you believe and why, or to summarize your offering. Danielle Oteri does this beautifully in her Haiku Deck created to promote the Feast On Innovation (which sounds AMAZING, by the way).
How To Promote Your Business: Sample paragraph slide

Sample paragraph slide

How To Promote Your Business: Sample solid color slide

Sample solid-color slide

Your Turn

We’d love to see your killer pitches and promotional Haiku Decks! Please share links in the comments, or tweet them with the hashtag #hdgallery.

More in the Rock Star Series

How To Build Thought Leadership

How To Make Your Company Values Visible

How To Give a Killer Presentation